Progress toward gender equality is “vanishing before our eyes,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres told the Commission on the Status of Women on Monday.
Speaking to the key UN women’s rights group ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, Guterres said gender equality is “300 years away” according to the latest estimates from UN Women, the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Guterres cited high rates of maternal mortality, girls being forced into early marriage, and girls being kidnapped and assaulted for attending school as evidence that hope of achieving gender equality “is growing more distant.”
In his speech, Guterres did not mention Iran, which was expelled from the 45-member commission in December over protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s so-called “morality police.”
“Women’s rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the world,” Guterres said, naming a few countries in particular, including Afghanistan, where he said “women and girls have been erased from public life.”
On Monday, young Afghan women gathered outside Kabul University to protest the ruling Taliban’s ban on female education, a restriction which a new UN report says may amount to “a crime against humanity.”
To achieve gender equality, Guterres called for “collective” and “urgent” action, from increasing education, income and employment for women and girls, especially in developing nations in the Global South, to promoting the participation of women and girls in science and technology.
“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology,” Guterres said. “Let’s be clear: global frameworks are not working for the world’s women and girls. They need to change.”